


please don't say you love me

by somnolence



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, dealing w abuse survivor things, so much emotional baggage, this has a happy ending i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 12:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9490136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somnolence/pseuds/somnolence
Summary: (my chest feels like it's going to explode)Kravitz opens up. Taako breaks down.





	

“I love you,” Kravitz says one day, while Taako has his legs resting on his lap.

All the syllables carry enough weight to make it obvious he’s carefully rehearsed them in his head a thousand times, but they still come out clumsy and hurried, as if he was afraid of losing his nerve.

Taako blinks, once, twice, thrice, not quite processing it, and then it strikes him with the force of a freight train.

It should make him happy. It doesn’t.

Instead, it brings back memories of the way Sazed would say it -- all cockiness, all confidence in the fact that his feelings would be returned, because _why wouldn’t they_. It takes him back to Sazed winking with all the impudence in the world, to him grinning wide (wryly, sleazily), to his hands grasping Taako’s.

To him leaving.

To him killing forty people out of jealousy and spite, and making Taako deal with the guilt and the shame of it.

When has love ever done Taako any good? Sazed claimed to love him, to care for him, to want the best for him. Who’s to say Kravitz isn’t playing him?, how can he know he’s earnest, how can he know it isn’t all just an elaborate trap to kill him or get him to kill others or just for the sake of seeing his heart shatter?

Nothing good comes out of love. Fuck that useless shit.

Kravitz is looking at him expectantly, fear and -- and something that makes Taako’s guts churn written all over his eyes. He’s a fucking good actor, he’ll give him that, but he’s not going to fall for it. Not this time. He’s learned his lesson, through blood and tears.

“I think it’s time for you to leave, bubbeleh,” Taako says. It comes out both harsher and shakier that he’d intended for it to be, but _whatever_. He won’t be seeing Kravitz again after this; anything the Reaper thinks of him doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He doesn’t care.

(He cares, absurdly, stupidly, and it makes him so angry he just wants to fling himself against a wall.)

“Taako, I--”

“Tick, tock. I got things to do.”

“... Of course.” Kravitz has no right to look this dejected. He also has no right to look this handsome while at it, to have such a deep sorrow etched on his face.

“I’m sorry, Taako. I--I really am,” he says.

Taako chooses not to reply, because he fears that his resolution will fall apart. All he does is look at his fingernails, feigning indifference.

He doesn’t see Kravitz leave; he only hears the telltale sound of a portal being created, and closed shortly afterwards.

Hollowness settles in his chest, but he chooses to ignore it.

That’s his specialty, after all.

* * *

 

Taako tries not to think of Kravitz in the following days.

He fails, miserably. Critical fucking fail. It leads him to thinking of the Reaper every single waking second, and most specifically, of the pained look on his face as Taako broke his heart with a few words. 

It makes a disgusting sort of hope bloom in him, hope that Kravitz might not have been lying, that he truly feels what he claimed to feel; but Taako knows better. Love is for other people, but not for him -- and even then, it always ends badly, doesn’t it? Magnus lost Julia, and Sloane and Hurley died, no matter how besotted they were with each other. Love, Taako decides for what is probably the hundredth time, is  _ shit.  _

Even if it weren’t, it would pass him by without a second glance, because Taako is a fucking mess and not exactly the kind of person who would be categorized as lovable.

That’s been made abundantly clear. Sazed is the most prominent of examples, but aside from him, everyone who claimed to care for Taako left him on his own, without any regard for his safety or for his feelings; and considering it’s happened so many times, what other answer is there but  _ Taako is unlovable _ ?

(There isn’t any.)

What he gleans from it is: Kravitz is lying, Kravitz is using him somehow, Kravitz is probably trying out an unconventional reaping method. He probably says that to all his bounties, now. He’s handsome enough that it’d work --  _ fuck, Taako, don’t think about him being handsome that’s like, the last thing you want right now. _

Telling himself not to do things has never worked.

* * *

 

A wiser person -or one without so many deep seated issues- would try and reach out to others. They’d talk to Killian, or Carey, or even Magnus who, despite having met with tragedy, has a sizeable amount of experience with relationships. Taako isn’t wise, though, and he isn’t fond of dealing with things in a healthy fashion.

He looks at the Stone of Farspeech far more often than he should. He spins it around with his fingers, carefully runs a thumb across it, and finds himself  _ this  _ close to tuning into Kravitz’ channel and saying… something. He’s not sure what.  _ Sorry, my dude, but I don’t fuck with that entire ‘feelings’ shit? _ ,  _ I think you’re hot as hell but I’m not into that kinda mushy stuff?, I love you too, but I’m beyond traumatized and afraid that you’re going to hurt me -- _

No. Nope. Not going there. 

* * *

 

It shouldn’t be so hard to convince himself that he doesn’t love Kravitz, that he doesn’t care if Kravitz was honest about loving him or not.

* * *

 

Taako can’t keep himself from going back to the past. Which is ironically appropriate, because ‘Taako hangs back’ and all that.

It’s dumb, and repetitive, and he’s  _ exhausted;  _ but when he’s not doubting his own perception of events, a doubt that comes accompanied with the image of Kravitz’ honest eyes and his shy smile, he’s fixating on Sazed and what he did. Which, taking into account the magnitude of what he did, should come as no surprise. 

After what the Temporal Chalice showed him, part of the guilt has left, replaced by a white-hot anger that makes his teeth chatter, but he can’t quite get rid of the feeling that it was somehow his fault. It’s terrible, because it’s what Sazed would have wanted, and he’s not willing to let that piece of shit have control over his life.

He wants to meet Sazed again. He wants to see him, and punch him until all his smugness leaks out. There’s no longer any desire to ask for explanations, just an intense fury and hands clenching into tight fists, itching to connect with Sazed’s face.

It’s a step towards recovery, he supposes, but it sucks that he can’t stop thinking about him, be it because of guilt or because of anger.

He just wants to get rid of him, to scrub his mind clear of him, once and for all.

* * *

 

Angus is likely the last person Taako would have thought of when it came to doling out adequate relationship advice, on the grounds of being a kid with no romantic experience whatsoever. 

He underestimated the sheer strength of a meddlesome personality.

Taako is walking aimlessly around the moon base, hoping that the activity will clear his head somewhat, or at least make him run into someone who’s more miserable than he is, when he feels a small hand hesitantly tugging at his sleeve. He doesn’t have to ask who it is - he turns around and is met by the wide, concerned eyes of a certain boy detective.

“Excuse me, sir,” Angus says, “but I couldn’t help noticing that you’re, um, acting different. Please don’t try to contradict me, I’m too smart for that.”

Taako wants to say that’s not true, but he knows perfectly well it is, and he also knows he won’t stop hounding him until he gets what he wants.

“What if I made macaroons, Agnes, would that get you off my ass?”

“Your delicious treats are wonderful, mister Taako, but no. Also, if you’re offering to cook, things must be worse than I thought. I haven’t seen your boyf-” he seems to think better of it (smart kid) and clears his throat. “Ah, mister Kravitz, around. Did you two argue?”

“Nah, my dude. He just has better things to do, ya dig? Souls to reap, bounties to collect, skeletal asses to scratch. That kinda thing.”

“You really don’t expect me to believe that, sir,” Angus says. 

The boy is looking at him with a sort of stern seriousness that should be hilarious and is actually quite disquieting, considering the way his eyes are drilling into Taako’s. It makes him uncomfortably shift from foot to foot.

This entire thing is far too personal, and straying towards dangerous territory. The best, and only, thing to do is to hightail it out of there. Luckily, he knows just the thing to say to get Angus to leave him alone; Taako’s made out of smooth excuses, after all.

“Agnus, you know I love talking to you, or at least I don’t hate it too much, sometimes, but I gotta run. I just got word that there’s a grand relic buried in some corpse’s dick in Neverwinter, and we really have to get there and grab those sweet dead nuts.”

Angus straightens up to his full height -which is very comical, considering he’s about as tall as a thigh-high boot-, and pushes his glasses up his nose. “No matter how hard you try to gross me out, I won’t budge. I’m the moon’s best detective, you see, and detectives don’t give up.”

“Sure, okay -- whoa, do you hear that? It sounds like a flying sparkly unicorn running by! The magic flying sparkly unicorn that grants all your wishes and also gives out cutlery! Quick, catch it before it vanishes forever!”

“You can’t tempt me with magical creatures either, sir.”

He’s not going to open up, Taako decides. Not to Angus, not to anyone. He already made that mistake before, telling Kravitz that nobody else would have him, and it backfired - he was taken advantage of, as Kravitz exploited his vulnerabilities to… he’s not sure what for, but there’s got to be a reason in there somewhere. If it happened with Sazed, why wouldn’t it happen again?

No, he’s not going to open up. He’s not going to tell  _ shit _ . He’s going to Blink the fuck out of there, and…

“He said he loved me,” Taako whispers, almost inaudibly; but Angus catches on to it anyway, because of course. It’s not as if he could ever catch a break.

The boy detective’s eyes light up. “Oh! I’m so happy for you, sir! That’s - that’s really good, isn’t it?”

Taako laughs mirthlessly. He tries not to sound completely like an asshole, just like a bit of an asshole, because as much as he wishes it weren’t true, as much as he denies it, as much as it fucks him up, he cares about Angus and doesn’t want to hurt him. It still comes off as mocking and cruel, though, and he sees Angus flinch and hates himself more for it.

“You kidding me? It’s terrible. It’s the worst thing that could happen to me, and I’ve died like, twenty times.”

“Don’t you like him?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the moon’s bestest detective or some shit? Of  _ course  _ I like him, Ango. I’m crazy about the guy, and not in the way I generally do, but in the gross mushy ‘I want to cuddle and hold hands’ way. I feel fucking disgusting.”

“But, sir-”

He won’t let Angus get a word edgewise, because the dam’s been opened, and if he shuts up now he’ll realize he’s being a dumb shit, bury his head in the ground, and become the moon’s first elf-ostrich hybrid; so he keeps on going. “The last time I tried this ‘feelings’ fuckshit it ended so badly! Forty fucking people died! And I thought it was my fault, but it wasn’t, and, and how do I know that the same won’t happen again? How do I know I’m not being played like a fucking deck of idiot cards? I can’t be loved, Angus, I don’t fucking deserve it!”

“Sir.”

“ _ What!? _ ”

“You are loved, and you deserve to be loved,” Angus says, calmly, softly.

Taako is stunned into silence.

“I love you. Magnus and Merle love you. Killian, Carey, Noelle, Avi -- they all love you. Kravitz loves you, too. I can see it in the way he looks at you, and please trust me, because I’m never wrong.”

“What if you are, Ango? I can’t risk it.”

“You won’t be played,” he continues, with enough gentleness to almost move Taako to tears, “and if you are, you have people looking out for you. People who will support you, who will stand by you, who will remind you that it was someone else’s fault, not yours, and that it doesn’t make you unlovable, and that it doesn’t make you a bad person somehow.”

“And if someone hurts me, you’ll wreck their shit?” Taako smiles weakly.

“You got it, sir.”

Despite all his talent as a detective, Angus doesn’t expect the tight, fierce hug in which Taako envelops him.

* * *

 

In his experience, someone having your back only means it’s easier for them to stab you in it.

Experience is a liar. He’s done listening to it, letting it rule every single aspect of his life. 

* * *

 

_ Deep breaths _ , Taako tells himself.  _ In, out. In, out. _

He tunes the Stone of Farspeech into Kravitz’ channel, and stares at it for a while, chewing at his bottom lip. This is a bad idea. It probably won’t go over well. Kravitz can’t possibly still like him, let alone love him, after the awfully inconsiderate way Taako dismissed him --

But Taako likes him, doesn’t he? He likes him, a lot, and he won’t let his insecurities get in the way of what he wants.

So he opens the channel, and says, “Kravitz? You there?”

The reply takes long enough that Taako starts to regret his entire existence, but at last, a half-awed, half-suspicious “Taako?” comes from the other end.

He doesn’t know whether Kravitz was just away from the stone or processing the fact that Taako’s reaching out to him. It’s not like it matters, anyway, not with such pressing issues at hand.

“I really gotta talk to you. Could you swing by soon?”

“Uh, I--”

“I’ll whip up something special. Skeleton-shaped cookies, if you’re into that. And if you’re not, suck it, because I don’t have the ingredients to make anything else and there’s no way I’m putting up with Garfield and his fucking deals. Last time I ever trade my soul for some ground beef, baby! I mean, obviously, ‘cause I only got one soul. I think. That’s more of your thing.”

He could almost swear he hears Kravitz laughing softly. “Skeleton cookies sound killer, Taako. See you later, then.”

Taako doesn’t allow himself time to get nervous about the prospect of seeing Kravitz. He does, however, fret over the fact he’s going to cook.

He walks towards the makeshift kitchen, swinging his hips just the slightest bit to convince himself that everything’s alright and that he’s got this, but panic makes his stomach twist into ugly knots, tight enough that they make him nauseous. This is a terrible idea. This can only end badly.

_ Stop. That was Sazed’s fault, and Sazed isn’t here anymore. _

_ You’d beat him to a pulp if he were.  _

_ He can’t get to you. _

Taako opens a cabinet and picks up some ingredients -- he stares down at his hands and the food shifts into elderberries, into nightshade, into the congealed blood of forty people --

_ It’s not your fault _ .

He tries his best to think of a bottle of arsenic.

_ You liked this. You were good at it. You can’t run forever, you can’t let him ruin you anymore. _

_ Take your life back. _

He swallows hard and begins cooking.

* * *

 

Kravitz arrives just in time; shortly after Taako finishes the cookies, when he’s starting to seriously consider throwing them in the garbage and fleeing into the forest to disappear forever.

“Hello,” he says. He’s got his entire fleshy getup going on, and, fuck, he’s better looking than Taako remembered, which is quite the feat. 

“Hey, my man! Make yourself comfortable. Mi casa es tu casa, and all that crap. Want some cookies? They’re freshly baked.”

“Of course.”

Kravitz looks anxious. It’s clear that something is on his mind, but he doesn’t say anything about the tension that stretches between them. Which sucks, in Taako’s opinion, because it leaves it up to him to fix the mess he’s made. (Fair, maybe, but  _ ugh _ . Feelings. Conversations. He hates that shit.)

The Reaper grabs a cookie and nibbles on it. For a second, Taako believes that it’s out of fear that it’ll poison him, but then he reminds himself that Kravitz is dead, and as far as he knows you can’t die twice. This is just how Kravitz does everything, in a measured, methodical way, from eating cookies to love confessions.

The tension is almost unbearable, now. He’s got to say something, he’s got to clear the air before Kravitz leaves and decides to never see him again, he’s got to --

“I love you too,” he blurts out.

Kravitz half spits out, half chokes on the cookie.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, by which I mean that Agnes made me think about it against my will, like he practically held me against my own thoughts and yelled ‘pay attention to them!’, and I… I realized that it’s okay if I love you, because I trust you and I want to take a risk on you and if you fuck me up I got people around me who will  _ doubly  _ fuck you up, so I’m safe.”

“That’s good to hear, but,” he’s got stars in his eyes, the fucking dork, but he also speaks with enough seriousness to make Taako’s ears perk up because whatever he’s about to say, it’s the real deal, “please don’t feel like you owe me anything, or like you have to act on your feelings if you’re not comfortable with them. I can wait until you feel entirely sure about this, and-”

“Well, here’s the thing, my man. You can wait. I can’t.”

“... Because you’re a mortal?”

“Because I’m  _ tired _ , Krav. Because I’m scared that if I let go of this now, if I keep on pushing it back, I’ll never get over what’s fucked me up. I want… I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“You’re not alone, Taako. I’ll still be your friend. If you feel pressured to be with me just because you fear I might leave you-”

It’s probably a bit rude to keep interrupting him, Taako muses, but it’s now or never. “I want to be with you because I love you. Simple as that. Or actually, really fucking shitting complicated, but what’re you gonna do about it.”

Kravitz, bless his undead soul, doesn’t waste time on contemplative silence. He places his hand over Taako’s and smiles. 

His thin, long fingers lightly caress Taako’s own, perfectly manicured and entirely covered in gold and silver and miscellaneous gems. There’s a certain warmth, a certain ethereal magic he can’t quite explain, to the way Kravitz’ dark skin and Taako’s brown skin look together - if he had to explain it, he’d say it’s kind of like a sunset.

They look good together, Taako thinks.

The future looks good, he allows himself to think. 

The future will be kind, because he’ll fight tooth and nail to make it so.

 

**Author's Note:**

> so basically this is a cathartic thing, also self-indulgent as hell lmao
> 
> the pacing is probably off (as in, the entire recovery thing happens too quickly) but i feel that taako was halfway there, and all he needed was a small nudge and to be assured that he's not alone
> 
> btw i'm sorry if there are any spelling/grammar mistakes (im not a native english speaker) or any formatting mistakes (this is my first time posting to ao3). if you stumble across any lmk and i'll edit them!
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at taakokravitz! (as if it wasn't already obvious that i love these two, lmao)
> 
> also the title + part of the summary are from mitski's "first love/late spring"! really really good song, i highly recommend it


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